


Your Father and I Have What's Called a Marriage of Convenience

by Brosephine (SaturnOolaa)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Dramedy, Gen, M/M, Missing Scene, Unrequited Love, sakura is way too understanding of sasuke's pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 15:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6056494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnOolaa/pseuds/Brosephine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, I Fixed the Ending of Naruto. Sasuke asks Sakura to have his child, and then they talk about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Father and I Have What's Called a Marriage of Convenience

They had developed a routine over the years. Whenever Sasuke came back from wandering, regardless of the time of day, he would head straight to Sakura's apartment. He had never asked for a key, and she had never given him one, so if she was at work, he would sit down on the steps and wait - sometimes for hours - until she got home. Sakura would give him a brief, tight hug, and Sasuke would put his one arm around her just as briefly. Then they would go inside and she would make coffee, and maybe heat up some frozen dinners, and they would sit across from one another at the little table in the kitchenette.

Tonight was no different.

"Thank you for the coffee."

"You're welcome." Sakura dumped sugar straight from the sugar bowl into her cup, stirred it in, took a sip, and sighed, contentedly. "There we go."

"Long day?"

"Yeah." She sighed again - less contentedly, this time, although she still felt a little charge of surprised pleasure every time Sasuke asked her about her life. "They just graduated a whole new batch of medical students, and I'm in change of training. The population's growing so fast, we need all the help we can get, but they're driving me crazy. And I had to do two surgeries today - that hasn't happened since right after the war."

Sasuke made a small noise of sympathy, but said nothing. Stripped of arrogance, he had grown more and more quiet over the years, and Sakura respected that. It wasn't unusual for them to spend a long time together without either one saying anything. It was a companionable silence, and Sakura enjoyed it, especially after a long shift.

After they had both finished their coffee, Sasuke said "I need to ask you something."

"Of course," she replied, a bit surprised. "Go ahead."

He took a deep, slow breath.

"Will you have a child with me?"

"What?" asked Sakura, casually, sure she had misheard him. Then, as the words sunk in, she slammed her palms down on the table and sprang up, staring down at Sasuke in shock. "Wait, **what**?"

Sasuke stayed seated. His face was a mask. "I said, will you have a child with me."

"You want to have a **baby**? With **me**?"

"Yes."

"You... shit. This is real. This is actually happening." Sakura sank back down into her chair. It seemed like a better idea to be seated at the moment - she felt a little shaky, almost queasy. "You... want to have a baby. With me."

"Yes," repeated Sasuke, expression unchanged.

For lack of a better response, she fell back on humour. "Well, this is the worst proposal ever."

One look at Sasuke told her he had taken that remark seriously, and that somehow, he hadn't even considered his question from this angle. "I'm not asking you to marry me. We don't have to get married."

Sakura managed to bark out an incredulous laugh - more of a snort, really. "If we're having a baby, we do. I'm not just handing you an infant and walking away, and I sure as hell don't plan to be an unwed mother."

There was a hint of expectation in his eyes now. "Is that-"

"No! No, it's not a 'yes,' I'm just saying." Sakura's mind was racing. This was the triumphant climax of her secret girlhood fantasies, but the context of the last ten years made it absurd, warped, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. "Why... why are you asking me? Why not someone else?"

Sasuke gave one shake of his head. "Who else could I ask?"

"Anyone. Anyone other than me." Despite everything he'd done, Sakura could think of more than a few young women in Konoha who would happily have agreed to bear Sasuke's children. "I mean, you could ask Ino!"

"No." 

A casual observer would say that Sasuke's expression remained neutral. But after all these years, Sakura had grown skilled at reading him, and the hint of dismay on his face made her smile, weakly. "Okay, fine, you couldn't ask Ino. But why me? Why now?"

"Because I don't have to lie to you." The mask was back on, but Sasuke's voice wasn't entirely steady. "I heard..." He stopped, swallowed, and then continued. "I met Shikamaru on my way here. He told me they set the date for the wedding while I was gone."

Somehow, just like that, it made sense. Sakura's heart went out to the man sitting at the table across from her. Of course that's what this was about. That was what everything in Sasuke's life lead back to, eventually: the third person who was always at the table with them, never mentioned by name.

"Oh, Sasuke," she said, as gently as she could, and reached across the table to offer him her hand. "I'm so sorry."

Sasuke took it, and clasped it tightly in his own for a moment before letting it go again. "It's fine. I knew it was going to happen."

"That doesn't make it fine."

A smile crossed Sasuke's face. It was the smile of someone who wasn't happy very often, and certainly wasn't happy now. "We were going to die together," he said, very slowly and quietly. "I was looking forward to it. And now we're alive, and I'm alone."

This was the closest he had ever come to telling her out loud he was in love with Naruto. It might be the closest he would ever come - even now, she couldn't imagine the word 'love' coming out of Sasuke's mouth. She'd already known about it for years. In that time, the nature of her feelings toward Sasuke had changed. Once she'd had the opportunity to grieve her own unfulfilled love, she'd found that she also had the capacity to grieve his. At least she had her family, her friends. He had so little.

The fact that he could look her in the eye and tell her even this much filled her with an odd kind of pride. She had known for years that she was Sasuke's best friend, but she hadn't quite realized until now what that meant. Sasuke, who revealed so little of himself even to the people closest to him, was taking her into his confidence. Somehow, the inevitability of Naruto and Hinata's wedding had lead him to want a child with her. She didn't know why, but the reason wasn't as important as the situation. 

He was in pain, and he was asking her for help. That was all she needed to know.

"Okay," she said softly. "Convince me."

"What?"

"Convince me." She half-regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth, but she needed to give him a chance. "Having a baby is a pretty big deal, Sasuke. Let alone raising one. I need a, well, a mission briefing, so I can decide whether this is something I want to do."

"I understand," said Sasuke, quietly. "But I don't... I don't have any sort of plan for this. I wasn't sure you'd even consider it." His voice took on a nervous edge. "As for... the process itself..."

It took Sakura a moment to figure out what he was referring to. "Oh! We don't have to have sexual intercourse, if that's what you mean. You could just give me a sperm sample, and I would self-inseminate." Obstetrics wasn't her specialty, but it was a simple enough process that she was sure she could do it herself with no trouble. "I'm more concerned with what comes next."

"Such as?"

"Well, would you come back to Konoha?" 

Without hesitation, Sasuke nodded. "I've seen what I needed to see of the world. If I stayed away any longer, it would only be out of cowardice." His next words were spoken carefully. "I... can't promise that I'll be here for their wedding. After that, I'll come home for good."

"I understand," said Sakura. Naruto would be hurt by Sasuke's absence, but if she were in Sasuke's position, nothing in the world could convince her to be in Konoha on that day. She decided to move on from the subject quickly. "So, I'm pregnant, I have the baby, then what?"

"My hope is that we would raise the child together, but the final decision would fall to you. You're the one going through pregnancy and childbirth, so if you object to that - "

"That's not what I meant," said Sakura, exasperation creeping into her voice. "Didn't I tell you like a minute ago that I don't plan to be an unwed mother? We are absolutely raising the child together. I just want to know what 'together' means to you, exactly. I don't plan on giving up my career. What happens when I go back to work?"

"Oh," said Sasuke, as if it hadn't even been in question for him, "I'll stay at home and take care of our child." His face remained carefully blank. "Although I may have some trouble learning to change a diaper with one hand."

Sakura stared at him. Up until this moment, 'diaper' was another one of the many words she couldn't imagine coming out of Sasuke's mouth. Almost against her will, she started laughing. Sasuke, clearly pleased with himself, joined her – it started as a barely-audible chuckle, but as Sakura continued, so did he. Eventually Sasuke was actually laughing a full-fledged laugh, the kind she hadn't heard out of him in years. That made her laugh even harder. She laughed until she could hardly breathe, until her eyes filled with tears.

As she sat there, rocking back and forth and howling almost hysterically, a picture formed in her mind: coming home from a long day at work to find Sasuke kneeling on a woolen blanket, gently wiping their child clean with a wet cloth, making little soothing noises, and smiling. For the first time since she was thirteen, she was able to imagine having a child with this man, raising a child with him.

It could actually happen. They could actually do this.

Sakura's laughter subsided into gasps for breath. "And..." she stopped, composed herself, and tried again. "And you just want the one?"

"Yes."

"So," she said, awkwardly, forcing herself to voice the question that had been hovering in the back of her mind. It had been easy to talk about intercourse in the context of pregnancy, but she had never even hinted at details about her sex life to Sasuke, and she wasn't comfortable doing so now. "After that. I... we're still pretty young, so... if I have certain... uh, needs... that I'm pretty sure you don't want to fill..."

Sasuke had the same dismay on his face as when she had suggested he have a baby with Ino. "You're the one who wants us to get married," he said, very carefully not looking her in the eyes. "Anything I can't give you, you can get from someone else." 

"Okay!" exclaimed Sakura with a breath of relief. "That's all we need to say about that, then."

Sasuke didn't answer her. The dismay on his face had shifted to something like worry. "Sakura," he said, slowly, "are you seeing someone right now? Because if you are - "

"I'm not." Sakura cut him off with a shake of her head. "Too busy. If I **was** seeing someone, you would already know that, and we wouldn't even be having this conversation." 

"But it's not as if you've..." Clearly uncomfortable with this subject, Sasuke trailed off, but after a moment he tried again. "You might still want a relationship with someone in the future. If we get married and have a child together, that would be... difficult, at best. Can you accept that?"

"I thought you were supposed to be convincing me to do this, not talking me out of it."

Sasuke looked her in the eyes. "You told me to give you a mission briefing. That includes a discussion of the risks. I want this, but not at the expense of your happiness. I want you to be happy."

Sakura couldn't resist. "Well, one of us has to be," she said, dryly. Sasuke cracked a smile at that, and she returned it. "Seriously, though? That's not a factor in my decision. If I fall in love with someone, we can figure that out when the time comes. I can't make this choice based on something that **might** happen in the future."

In fact, that statement applied to everything they were discussing now. She could ask a million more questions, and Sasuke would answer them as best he could, but how much more information would she really gain from that? Neither of them could predict what was going to happen, and life rarely went according to people's plans. In the end, if she chose to do this, she was choosing to step forward into an unknown future. She had to be at peace with that.

But there was one more thing she needed to ask tonight.

"Is this about reviving the Uchiha?"

It came out with more of an edge than she had intended it to. She didn't really think Sasuke wanted to be the patriarch of a new Uchiha clan. He had probably never wanted that, if only because he had never planned to live that long. But the question had occurred to her all the same. She had forgiven Sasuke years ago, and she trusted him, but... he had betrayed her trust before. Hidden inside her was an inner Sakura who kept the memory of everything he had done. Out of respect for that girl, she needed to ask the question.

Horror bloomed on Sasuke's face. "No!"

"All right," said Sakura. Her inner self, satisfied, retreated from her concious mind. "I didn't think so. I just wanted to make sure." 

"That's not..." Sasuke, still looking disturbed by her question, began grasping for words. "I don't want that. What the Uchiha stood for isn't worth reviving. This is..." He paused, and Sakura waited. It took a long while for him to continue, and when he did, it was with a vulnerability she almost never heard in his voice. "I just don't want it to end this way. With me, alone. I thought that if there could be one more Uchiha, a child who knows nothing of revenge, or hatred... who can have a loving family, and grow up to be happy... that would be enough to live for."

"You think we can raise that child together?" asked Sakura, very softly.

"I do." Sasuke sounded firm. "I've had time now to think about what I want to do with my life. There are paths-" He broke off for a moment, as though the words were choking him. "There are paths that are closed off to me. I closed them off through my own actions, and I accept that. There's no point to just... longing for a life I can't have."

Sakura thought of the third person at the table with them, and said nothing.

"I need to make a future for myself, if I want to keep going. I would be honoured if you would help me create that future."

He bowed his head to her.

"Please."

Well. 

The war was over, her career was secure. She had thought about having a child, someday. When better than now? And she certainly didn't have anyone else in mind as a candidate for the father. Why not Sasuke? She had seen enough of the world to know that not every marriage was a love match, not every child born of passion. Their child would have something special: a family created for the sole purpose of bringing them into the world. The two of them could make that happen.

Sakura got up from the table again, went around to Sasuke, and put her hand on his shoulder,above the place where his arm used to be. 

"I hate you," she said, kindly. "Yes, I'll have a child with you, you idiot." She'd known all along she was probably going to say yes, which was almost depressing, but at least she'd gotten him to ask nicely.

The beginnings of a genuinely happy smile spread across Sasuke's face. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you so, so much."

Sakura could think of a million things to say in return, but she settled for "You're welcome." In the back of her mind, hardly aware she was doing it, she had already begun to think of a way to eventually explain to their child why mommy and daddy slept in separate beds.

**Author's Note:**

> Twelve years ago, I wrote 2000 words of a fanfic where Sasuke and Sakura had a baby. Of course, in my fanfic, Sasuke and Naruto were dating, and Sakura was living in sin with Rock Lee. And then last year, Naruto ended, and Sasuke and Sakura did have a baby, and I was SO FUCKING MAD because as a queer person and feminist, I felt like it betrayed everything I thought about and wanted for either of them (I don't know whether to be horrified or gratified by the fact that their marriage seems canonically pretty terrible).
> 
> Like, if Sakura is going to be stuck doing Sasuke's emotional labour for the rest of her life, at least she's not going to fucking VOLUNTEER for it. At least she's not going to be in the dark all her life about why her husband denies her a goodbye kiss. (For that matter, although I feel much less sympathy for Sasuke, at least he can come out to his wife.)
> 
> So I fixed it! I'm pretty sure this doesn't contradict anything in the Epilogue, but it makes me feel much better about it. I still feel bad for Sakura, because this is not ideal for her, but there's plenty of time for her to search for true love after Sarada is born. Also, let's say the Epilogue depicts Sakura's day off and she decided to put in some extra cleaning which she usually doesn't have time for, being as she is busy at her job as the best Medical-nin in Konoha. Sasuke does the homemaking when he's in town, which he is more frequently than the epilogue implies.
> 
> Even though I've been a Sasuke/Naruto fan for a long, long time, I'm totally cool with Naruto marrying Hinata, and I'm sure they have a very happy and successful marriage. But there is a scenario in my mind where somewhere down the road, Naruto realizes he's actually still in love with Sasuke after all these years, and after a painful divorce and like a year alone, they rekindle their epic teenage romance. I plan to write about that at some point.


End file.
